Record

Ceiling panel from Dean House, Edinburgh

Ceiling panel from Dean House, Edinburgh

This panel is one of a series which made up a painted ceiling in the great hall at Dean House in Edinburgh. Seven panels have survived from the ceiling which was painted between 1605 and 1627.

This panel depicts King David playing his harp. Medieval painters customarily used contemporary interiors as the setting for Bible paintings.

Dean House stood on the site of what is now Dean Cemetery in Edinburgh. William Nisbet of Dean, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, bought the mills of Dean, the lands and 'farm toun of Dean', and a share of grazing ground in the neighbouring 'hieland mure' in 1609. He built a baronial home, Dean House, on the Dean estate in 1614.